When asked if she thought her team could win the Western League this season, Palisades High varsity soccer player Alex Michael had a loftier goal in mind. The Dolphins’ senior captain smiled and replied: ‘We want to go all the way!’ And there is plenty of reason to be optimistic. Equipped with skill and depth at every position, Palisades seems primed for a serious run at the City Section championship under second-year coach Kim Smith. Along with fellow captains Tia Lebherz and Kirsten Schluter, Michael leads a talented squad that includes returning forwards Lucy Miller, Sara Newman and Teal Foster and a solid defense headed by senior Diana Grubb, sophomore Sarah McNees and freshman Jazmyn Anderson. Freshmen Kelly Mickel and Evanne Gordon will contribute at forward and in the midfield. Schluter is charged with the task of replacing four-year starting goalie Laura Bailey. ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Schluter said. ‘That’s where the team needs me right now so I’ll do the best I can.’ Joining Michael in the midfield will be senior Jennifer Wong and junior Danielle Rochlin. ‘We have really good chemistry this season,’ said Michael, who teamed with Miller on the Westside Breakers’ under-17 gold squad in the summer. ‘We all get along great, we have more size and speed and our offense is stronger.’ Palisades opens the season at Marymount High today at 3:15 and plays a first-round game in the El Segundo Tournament Friday night. Next Tuesday, the Dolphins travel to Chatsworth for a nonleague rematch against the team that eliminated them from the playoffs last season. ‘I think we’ll be a pretty balanced team,’ said Grubb, who was the starting setter for the varsity volleyball team, which lost in the second round of the City playoffs in the fall. ‘We have good players all the way around. I hope we can do better than volleyball did.’ The Dolphins open Western League play January 12 at Westchester.

With a lineup chock full of gifted scorers, the Palisades High boys’ varsity soccer team figures to score plenty of goals this season. For the first time in years, head coach Dave Williams has true offensive players to complement a traditionally strong midfield and he hopes that combination will lead to victory when the Dolphins travel to Cleveland for their season opener at 2:30 this afternoon. ‘I think this team has some legitimate scorers and the key will be how well we can get them the ball,’ Williams said after practice Tuesday. ‘I like what I’ve seen so far but we’ll find out more on Thursday. It’s one thing to play well in practice… now let’s see how we look in a game situation.’ Lack of conditioning was a problem last year when the Dolphins were outplayed numerous times in the second half. To correct that problem, Williams has had his team run three days a week since school started to build their endurance. ‘We worked with the ball two days a week and ran three days a week,’ Williams said. ‘They started at two miles a day and worked up from there. I don’t want them getting tired late in games.’ Though the Dolphins lost several key players to graduation, including top scorer Kevin Seto, it returns senior midfielder Michael Larin, who will be the captain this season. Other key returners include junior midfielder Ben Tom, junior sweeper Brock Auerbach-Lynn, senior midfielder Fabio Gonzalez and junior midfielder Ever Barrios. Sophomore Travis Park and junior Rudy Romero will share the goaltending duties. ‘We’re pretty strong at every position,’ said junior midfielder Francesco Coco. Added Tom: ‘We’re stronger than last year. Everyone has progressed and the new players we have are fitting in well.’ Larin said the key will be how well the team sticks together: ‘I’m looking forward to the season. We have a strong offense and a solid defense but in order to play well we need to work as a team.’ Palisades beat Cleveland, 1-0, last season and Williams is hoping for a similar result today but perhaps with a few more goals. ‘Our defense is young but we’ll see how it holds up. The main problem I see in scrimmages is that we need to communicate better out there.’ After Palisades hosts Reseda next Tuesday it won’t play again until after winter break when it hosts Westchester to start Western League play January 12. The Dolphins finished 5-6-3 last season and lost in the first round of the City Playoffs for the 11th time in 12 years.

With one of his most experienced teams in years, Palisades High boys varsity basketball coach James Paleno had high hopes of challenging perennial powers Westchester and Fairfax for the the Western League title. But leading scorer D’Andre Bell was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his right foot over the summer, meaning the rest of the Dolphins may have to play a tough preseason schedule without him. Bell, a 6-5 senior forward who averaged 25.5 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists last season, was heavily recruited by UCLA, Michigan State, Georgetown and Arizona before deciding to sign with Georgia Tech. ‘D’Andre had an MRI exam last Wednesday and we’re still awaiting the results from his doctor,’ Paleno said. ‘I’m guessing he won’t be able to play for at least two or three weeks but that just means the other guys are going to have to step it up a notch.’ Palisades’ lineup consists of nine seniors, including four-year starting point guard Corey Counts and 6-5 returning forward Carl Robertson. Fresh off the varsity football team, 6-5 forward Justin Page will be a presence in the paint while the team’s lone freshman, Drake Stewart-Crowley, has impressed the coaching staff in practice. Paleno’s assistant coaches will be Mike Sutton, Mike Teller and Olin Simpliss, an All-City player for the Dolphins in 1992-93. Despite missing 20 free throws, Palisades opened the season with a 66-60 overtime victory over Narbonne Monday in the first round of the Pacific Shores Tournament at Redondo Union High. The Dolphins played Long Beach Jordan yesterday but results were unavailable at press time. ‘We’re going to have to play hard without D’Andre,’ Counts said. ‘We need to do all the little things right, rebound, and play scrappy defense. If we do those things, we’ll be fine.’ Counts scored 19 points in the opener while Cassidy Nelson added 15’including the first eight points of the game. Crowley started and contributed seven points and five steals. Forwards Vertis Hayes (a 6-5 junior), Charles Bowles (a 6-5 senior) and Peter Schroeder (a 6-4 senior) add size and depth to the lineup while sophomore Brian Barner, junior Justin Goodman and senior Jared Cooper will rotate at guard. ‘Last year I think we relied a little too much on D’Andre,’ Paleno said. ‘This year I’ve gone back to an aberration of the triangle offense that [former coach Jerry Marvin] used to run. We’ll spread the floor a little more which will hopefully allow us to take advantage of our mismatches.’ Palisades travels to Washington, the 12th-ranked team in the state, for a nonleague game next Wednesday, then plays in the Top of the World Tournament December 17-21 against quality competition like Compton Centennial, Compton Dominguez, Lynwood and Woodland Hills Taft. ‘Our rebounding needs a little work, but I like the resiliency of this group and I think we have good chemistry,’ Paleno said. ‘Hopefully, not having D’Andre out there will give the rest of the guys more minutes so that when he does come back, we’ll be that much better.’ Palisades opens Western League play January 12 at Westchester.

With a trio of new coaches and a dozen new players, the Palisades High girls basketball program is off to a fresh start. The sister-brother tandem of Ronda and Sheldon Crowley are heading the varsity and junior varsity squads while Torino Johnson is coaching the frosh/soph squad, which was absent last year under former coach Kevin Hall. To prepare for the season, Palisades’ varsity team participated in a fall league at Santa Monica College and psoted an 8-2 record, losing close games to Venice and Santa Monica while beating the likes of St. Monica, Torrance and Malibu. ‘If the girls perform like I believe they can, we should finish first or second in league,’ Sheldon Crowley said. I expect us to be a well-balanced team that is able to run, able to shoot and able to hit the outside shot. And I think we’re capable of scoring well over 40 points a game, but that remains to be seen.’ The Dolphins are hosting the Palisades Beach Invitational this week at the PaliHi gym. They played St. Bernard in the first round of pool play Wednesday night, they play Inglewood tonight at 6 p.m. and they play New Roads Friday at 7:30 p.m. The final round will be on Saturday. Leading Palisades will be senior forward Jasmine English, junior center Lupe Maciel, junior guard/forward Megan Coulter, sophomore guard/forward Elane Roepke, junior forward Tylisha Trapp and junior guard/forward Zedra Slaton. Palisades hosts Washington in a nonleague game at 4 p.m. next Tuesday and travels to Woodland Hills Taft for a nonleague game Thursday. The Dolphins are scheduled to play in two tournaments over winter break, the Tournament of Champions in Chandler, Arizona, December 19-23 and the West Coast Jamboree in Antioch, California, December 26-30. While the varsity team is hosting its own tournament, the Pali junior varsity team is participating in the Washington High JV Shootout against Washington, Carson, Compton Centennial, Venice, South Gate and Jordan.

Ex-Palisades Star Becomes Golden Bears’ All-Time Receptions Leader

If given a dollar for every defender he has faked out since he first put on pads, Geoff McArthur would be rich by now. Although he has yet to make a dime playing the sport he loves, it may only be a matter of time before he’s earning millions in the National Football League. Whether or not that happens, McArthur can be proud of what he has accomplished up to now. On November 20, the senior wide receiver became the career receptions leader at the University of California, Berkeley. Five years ago, he set the same record at Palisades High. “Choosing Cal is the best decision I ever made,” said McArthur, who first opted for Oregon State but changed his mind when the Beavers asked him to red shirt. “But choosing Palisades is a close second. I had a great time there and it really prepared me for the next level.” Cal’s senior captain could not have asked for a better stage to make his record-breaking catch than a nationally-televised game against Bay Area rival Stanford, and when McArthur snared a three-yard pass in the fourth quarter to move past Dameane Douglas (1995-98) on the Golden Bears’ all-time list with his 196th reception, no one was happier than Cal head coach Jeff Tedford. “It’s a great accomplishment for Geoff and he really earned it,” Tedford says. “He’s our captain, he’s our leader and he’s been a big part of the success we’ve enjoyed this season.” McArthur turned 22 on Tuesday but he received a surprise birthday present the day before when he was named to the Pacific 10 Conference first team, an honor he claims he was not expecting but felt honored to accept. More important to him than personal milestones, however, is the success of his team. If the fourth-ranked Golden Bears (9-1) beat Southern Mississippi in their season finale Saturday, they will likely play in their first Rose Bowl since 1959. “This next game is huge,” McArthur says. “It’s definitely the biggest of my career so far because there’s so much riding on the outcome. But that’s what makes it fun.” McArthur, a Heisman Trophy candidate when the season began, has played hurt without complaint for the last month and that’s nothing new for him. In fact, the two games he remembers most from his days at Palisades were in the playoffs his senior year in which he played with two broken ribs. “The first one was in the first round against Locke when I scored the game-winning touchdown in the final seconds,” McArthur recalls. “But I broke my ribs during that game and had to go to the hospital. I remember it hurt so bad that I couldn’t breathe but there was no way I was coming out.” Then, in the quarterfinals against Chatsworth, McArthur made one of the most spectacular plays of his high school career when he broke eight tackles on his way to the end zone. “That was pretty special,” he says. “I still remember it like it was yesterday.” McArthur led the nation with 1,779 receiving yards, 91 catches and 28 touchdowns his senior year at PaliHi and won the Palisadian-Post Cup Award as the school’s outstanding athlete after setting the Dolphins’ all-time receptions record. Always modest, McArthur credits his success to the quarterbacks he’s played with and he sees both similarities and differences between Cal’s Aaron Rodgers and former PaliHi signal-caller David Koral, who now backs up Drew Olson at UCLA. In 1999, McArthur and Koral led one of the most prolific prep offenses in the state. “Dave is more of a long-armed guy whereas I’d say Aaron has a quicker release and likes the shorter passes,” McArthur explains. “But they are both phenomenal quarterbacks and I’m glad I’ve had those two guys throwing me the ball.” McArthur learned a valuable lesson at the start of his sophomore season at Cal. He was so upset with himself after what he felt was a subpar performance in the season opener that he punched through a glass window, lacerating his tricep muscle. The wound required 35 stitches and sidelined him for the year. The Golden Bears finished 1-10 and the incident matured McArthur quickly. He vowed never to let his emotions get the best of him again. “I felt terrible about it,” McArthur says now. “I felt like I let the team down. I should’ve been playing but I wasn’t. When I found out I’d be okay, I was determined to make up for it. I owed that to my teammates.” McArthur responded with two productive seasons in which Cal vaulted from a pretender to a serious contender in the Pacific 10. McArthur was the nation’s second-leading receiver last year behind Larry Fitzgerald of Pittsburgh. In addition to his receiving prowess, McArthur is reputed to be one of the best blocking wideouts in college football. The player who once terrorized secondaries at Stadium by the Sea is doing the same thing now in Strawberry Canyon. “You would almost rather see Geoff catch the ball than block for a teammate because at least you know where he is,” says former PaliHi receiver Greig Carlson, a punt returner for USC who, ironically, shares an apartment in Westwood with Koral. “He hits like a linebacker. He also runs the most precise patterns of any receiver.” McArthur will graduate in May with a degree in social welfare and no one is more proud of his academic accomplishments than Ron Price, Palisades’ head coach from 1996-2000. “I’m absolutely elated for Geoff and I’m happy that he’s getting his degree because that’s quite an accomplishment at a school that stresses academics,” says Price, who graduated from Cal himself in 1960. “I’ve coached football for 41 years and he’s one of the toughest players I ever had–and he has the bumps and bruises to prove it. He came along at the right place, at the right time, and in the right offense and he flourished in the spread formations we ran.” Waiting beyond graduation is rigorous training, followed by combines and the NFL draft. But McArthur is careful not to look too far into the future: “I’ve learned to take things a day at a time and always work as hard as I can. That way, no matter what happens I can say I gave it my best.” So far, his best has been more than enough.